by the sight of these paintings (bad as their
subjects), he put us out, letting his eyes fall back upon his newspaper
before the door had well closed upon us.

The beggarmen had waited in their places to give us another chance
of meriting heaven; and at the church door still crouched the old
beggarwoman. I saw now that the imploring eyes she lifted were
sightless, and I could not forbear another alms, and as I put my copper
big-dog in her leathern palm I said, _"Adios, madre."_ Then happened
something that I had long desired. I had heard and read that in Spain
people always said at parting, "Go with God," but up to that moment
nobody had said it to me, though I had lingeringly given many the
opportunity. Now, at my words and at the touch of my coin this old
beggarwoman smiled beneficently and said, "Go with God," or, as she put
it in her Spanish, "_Vaya vested con Dios."_ Immediately I ought to
have pressed another coin in her palm, with a _"Gracias, madre; muchas
gracias,"_ out of regard to the literary climax; but whether I really
did so I cannot now remember; I can only hope I did.

VII

I think that it was while I was still in this high satisfaction that
we went a drive in the promenade, which in all Spanish cities is the
Alameda, except Seville, where it so deservedly is the Delicias. It was
in every way a contrast to the road we had come from the Cartuja: an
avenue of gardened paths and embowered driveways, where we hoped to join
the rank and fashion of Granada in their afternoon's outing. But there
was only one carriage besides our own with people in it, who looked no
greater world than ourselves, and a little girl riding with her groom.
On one hand were pretty villas, new-looking and neat, which I heard
could sometimes be taken for the summer at rents so low that I am glad
I have forgotten the exact figures lest the reader should doubt my word.
Nothing but the fact that the winter was then hanging over us from the
Sierras prevented my taking one of them for the summer that had passed,
the Granadan summer being notoriously the most delightful in the world.
On the other hand stretched the wonderful Vega, which covers so many
acres in history and romance, and there, so near that we look down into
them at times were "the silvery windings of the Xenil," which glides
through so many descriptive passages of Irving's page; only now, on
account of recent rain, its windings were rather coppery.

At the hotel on